After the re-election of President Clinton, Kansans for Life distributed refrigerator magnets and bumper stickers saying “pro-lifers are unbelievably persistent”. That description came from a local media story, and while not intended as a positive, we chose to take it as a compliment.

So the tragic re-election of pro-abortion President Obama will be answered by our steady, uninterrupted march to create a pro-life culture in Kansas.

Both our U.S. Senators, Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, are pro-life and all four Congressional reps are pro-life. Two of them, Tim Huelskamp and Kevin Yoder, had uncontested races, while the remaining two, Mike Pompeo and Lynn Jenkins, saw robust victories Tuesday.

Kansas’ pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback was not up for re-election this year, but actively lent his support to firming up pro-life majorities in the state House and Senate. The Kansas House will continue its super-majority status, with a minimum of 86 (and probably higher) pro-lifers out of 125 members. The Senate has now attained a pro-life super majority with 29 of its 40 members.

76% of House candidates and 70% of Senate candidates who garnered Kansans for Life’s endorsement won contested races Tuesday,

similar to the rate of pro-life success in the August primaries. A half dozen races (both pro-life wins and losses) face recounts due to narrow margins.

But simple stats belie the hard fought nature of some of these election battles, set up against a backdrop of last-minute state redistricting by the court to correct the failure of the Senate to pass acceptable new state maps reflecting 2010 census changes. (This is a task all states must do every ten years and Kansas was the only state in the nation to fail to accomplish it.)

So after the court drew new boundary lines in June, many proven pro-life incumbents found themselves redrawn into new districts in competition with one, or even two, of their long-time pro-life legislative comrades. And in other districts, constituents found themselves without their long-time reliably pro-life representative.

Because Kansas is a heavily Republican state, the winner of the GOP primary is very often guaranteed the seat. So Democrats and liberal Republicans actively urged Democrats this summer to register as Republicans in the primary and vote against conservative pro-lifers. That strategy contributed to the narrow primary loss of a Senate seat for Kansans for Life co-founder, Joe Patton.

But despite the party-switch tactic of Democrats, three-fourths of the pro-lifers in Kansas state primaries won their races. That led liberal Republicans who’d lost their seats in the primaries, to publicly encourage Republicans to vote Democrat in the general election. That plea had little, if any, success.

Thanks to the hard work of the Kansans for Life Political Action committee and the myriad of pro-life volunteers across the state, the final tally of pro-life lawmakers for the Kansas 2013 legislative session is:

• a minimum of 79 out of 92 House Republicans and 7 of 33 House Democrats; • 29 of the 32 Senate Republicans and 0 of 8 Senate Democrats.